Proof of Vibes

All right, we're live. GM, GA, GE everybody. Welcome to what's going to be another great DevNTell. So if you didn't know, DevNTell is a 30-minute window for builders to showcase something they've been passionate about or been working on in Web3. This can be an awesome project they've been working on, demonstrating unit testing best practices, automation goodies, smart contracts, how to structure a project, etc. Basically, if you've got a passion for something, this is your opportunity to share with the Web3 community. And today I am excited to have on Russell and Anthony, who will be giving us an overview of their project called Proof of Vibes. Welcome to DevNTell, guys. A pleasure to have you on.

Thank you, thank you. Pleasure to meet you. Peace family, I'm Russ, co-founder and chief vibes officer over at the Proof of Vibes protocol. Started in Web3 end of 2020. I ended up, you know, watching a podcast, Earn Your Leisure, and finding out about what is DeFi, which led me down this whole rabbit hole of, you know, Web3 and decentralization. And ultimately ended up starting my own DAO, the 40 Acres DAO, in which our mission is to create self-sustaining communities of color utilizing blockchain through education, empowerment, and engagement, as there needed to be a culturally relevant onboarding of marginalized communities into this space.

With that being said, I ended up linking with my brother, mentor, and business partner Ant at South By [Southwest]. At South By, we had known each other previously and ultimately realized, man, we're going to all these events and there has to be a way to vibe-check them. We were just going in and seeing what the vibes were at different events and birthed the idea of Proof of Vibes. And so now we're here.

Yeah, I'll add a little background as well. So my background is I started a company called Lyricist Lounge about 31 years ago, in 1991. It was a premiere open-mic showcase for up-and-coming hip-hop artists in New York. We took that brand and kind of did everything we could with it, from open-mic to showcase to tour to albums with Rawkus, to MTV showcases, etc. Over the last two years or so, I went down this kind of rabbit hole with a group of friends, including Russ and others, where we really were just trying to understand what an NFT was just to begin with, right? Why would someone buy a JPEG? Down to the bottom of the barrel hole, you know, of what are verifiable credentials two years later. And so at this point, we've created a DAO, LL DAO, Lyricist Lounge DAO, and created our own social token, BARS, as a way for the community to kind of work together. And really our whole focus is onboarding, incubating, and accelerating the hip-hop community into Web3. Excited about this whole Proof of Vibes project because, as Russ said, you know, we were going to all of these different events doing quick vibe checks, little quick pull-ups, right? Like, oh, let's just peek in and see what's going on. And the idea of, wow, it would be great if we had Proof of Vibes before we got there, before we wasted all this time and energy, it would be great to kind of know what's going on there. And so, as he said, that's kind of where things came together.

I love that. And I love this collaboration between, like, tech and music, and you're really seeing it kind of, that area kind of take off a bit. The most notable figure in hip-hop, I would say arguably, is Snoop Dogg, who's getting involved in this space quite a bit, releasing like albums upon albums as NFTs and, guilty, I have bought one of his songs, so... But yeah, I'm excited to have you both on and really excited to see what you have to share. So, without further ado, we can get right into the content here.

Let's do it. All right. So again, GM, GA to everybody in the audience. Super appreciative of you guys tapping in and joining with us today. Again, my name is Russ, and today we're going over the Proof of Vibes protocol. All right. Boom. The first vibe-to-earn platform rewarding communities for good vibes. The idea really was we're all going to events, most of us going to events. How can we be rewarded for these events and really have a heart for tastemakers, those who people go to to, you know, know what's going on in the scene, and just real cultural curators, you know?

One of the biggest problems we've seen thus far in Web3, it's not really inviting for those who don't have technical backgrounds, right? So we wanted to create more curated experiences and make Web3 less ‘cringe’ to the public. Ant, do you want to talk about the rewards platform?

Make Web3 cool again. Yeah, absolutely. I think at the end of the day, like, just to touch on that, we're kind of coming from the hip-hop community and cool events and cool culture, and also kind of being tech brainiacs, it's like we kind of see the missing tool right now. It can't just be all zeros and ones. You need some color, you know, you need some cool factor, and that's really what we're looking to create through our activations. But yeah, this solution of rewarding people just for showing up, you know, influencers and tastemakers and this community of early adopters that you're looking to connect with. A lot of them are going through financial challenges right now, you know, post-COVID, it's been really hard for creatives to kind of make money and so we wanted to really dig into that and find ways for them, you know, to make money. And so this idea of them minting the vibe of a certain party and being able to do something with that was born.

All right. So our business model is Vibes-as-a-Service, VaaS, revolving around a unique rewards program with a system of reward points called Vibe Checks that users can earn by participating on the platform. Right? We have our Vibe Checks, which is our native point system. We're taking a Web 2.5 approach, as we've seen that for the target audience that we're looking to reach out to and onboard, the Web3 aspect can still be a little bit of a digital divide. There's a learning curve when it comes to setting up your wallet, storing your seed phrase, and these different nuances of blockchain. And so we wanted to take this loyalty rewards aspect of go to an event, earn a reward, partner with brands, which then, you know, are fueled by the communities. Right? So we have Step 1, which is your rewards and vibe checks; Step 2, a proof of contribution and building consensus. Communities will be able to go to events, leave a review based upon four things, which is our model for curate or quantifying a vibe, which is density, energy, friendliness, and diversity. Which then creates an overall vibe score and helps build consensus. And that's something we really want to focus on, which is community consensus. And then finally, Step 3, redeemable rewards. If I go to an event, I can earn these Vibe Checks, which I can redeem for cool swag, experiences, services, and products.

Ant, do you want to hit this ‘why’ behind it?

Yeah, I think ultimately the why behind it, so you know, vibes are like feelings. Again, this whole idea of, like, quantifying vibes. You know, we use this term, this word, so much, but you know, we really wanted to dig into what that means. And so, you know, vibes are opinions. Vibes lead from opinions to decisions. And those decisions create, you know, a lot of, you know, a lot of profit for people. So wouldn't it be cool to kind of have a way to have these analytics around feelings, around people, places, and things, right? As we dig down deeper into the rabbit hole, we believe we'll be able to find really strong ways to utilize that information.

Agreed, agreed. Again, the community consensus is so important, you know, how people feel about something as a whole, as a group, is what we call a community consensus. Technology helps us collect data about how people feel online, which then can be used in these brands and companies to build products to make or sell, right? So it's this perpetual wheel of value exchange.

And so another thing we're focused on throughout the platform is levels of engagement. Just like Web3 or the Internet as a whole, there's Web 1, Web 2, Web 3, and as members level up, they have more and more access to the platform and what we have to offer. So we have Web 1 access, which is open to everybody, read-only access, so you'll be able to go to the app and essentially there's a map of vibes, of hotspots, in which people can go to and you'll be able to have access to that, right? With 100 Vibe Checks as a gift. ‘Hey, thank you for joining the platform.’ Then we have Web 2 access, which is read and write, so you have the ability to earn more Vibe Checks, redeem rewards, and earn the ability to earn BARS token. And now finally, we have Web 3 access, which is certified ambassador. You have read and write access, ability to earn more Vibe Checks, redeem rewards, ability to earn BARS tokens, join the PoV DAO, and write proposals and vote in PoV DAO governance.

Yeah, just to touch on that a little, so every DAO or platform has a community, and for us, before we really talk about what people call the ‘market’ and who we call the ‘community’, we're really talking about key people within the community first and foremost. Yes, the influencers. Yes, the tastemakers, but more importantly, the promoters. You know, I started as a promoter 30 years ago, and my friend Russ has now got the promoter bug, shout-out to ETHDenver and the events we did there. But this idea of really championing the promoters. A promoter is a guy or a girl or a person who kind of wakes up with a vision. ‘Wow, it'd be cool to do this event,’ right? And they go through all this work for three months to put this event together, to bring all these beautiful people together, all these beautiful smiles, all these beautiful memories that are made, just for at the end of the night to be looking at $20 and wondering why they're still doing this, right? And so those people we really want to get behind. And so that's what our DAO's going to kind of be the first layer of our DAO, is really going to be a national and soon to be international group of promoters who are constantly every month pushing out incredible events. And so we want to partner with them, bring in brand partners to kind of amplify their events and bring in the community. And so that's a big part of the strategy here.

Well said. And I think to add on to that is in Web3, promoters are equivalent to shilling. And we've seen thus far with speculations specifically, the projects who shill the most and shill the loudest usually get the most attention, which equals liquidity. And so I truly think that one thing Web3 is missing within community building specifically is just street teams. People on the ground touching bases, campaigning, grass-rooting for those communities. And so we want to highlight that and be intentional about, you know, incentivizing people to shill or to promote, right? And that's what the DAO will be conceived around.

And so how we make money: subscriptions, Vibes-as-a-Service, quarterly NFT drops, and data. I really want to highlight, you know, something that is near and dear to our hearts: the ‘Vibes Attract Tribes’. The person that you are, your vibe, you know, will attract people that you are alike. And so we want to highlight sub-communities and the platform allows people to find their tribe and people that they connect with and that they vibe with, to fellowship, to break bread amongst one another, meet new people, and go to events that they like. Ant, do you want to touch on the tribes part?

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think you said a lot in it and it's, you know, at the end of the day, you know, okay, this kind of came from originally us kind of focusing on cool kids and not wanting to get bad feedback for being too cool for school, so it was like, you know, this can't just be a platform of all cool kids, even though that would be great. The truth is a vibe is really relative, right? And so my vibe is different from your vibe, and my vibe may also be different tomorrow. Like, today I may want to connect with like a cool hip-hop crew of people, but tomorrow I may want to connect with a group of developers, or even within that group of developers, there's certain subgroup of developers who think a certain way. And so this idea of the toggle, the toggle was created, right? So that when you're on the app and you're looking at the map, you can toggle to different communities and kind of see where people are and people will pop up and show up on that map. But yeah, ultimately your vibe in that moment attracts the type of tribe, the type of people you're wanting to connect with, basically Law of Attraction.

Exactly. Again, vibes are very subjective and each person has their own individual vibe, so we wanted to create a platform in which, you know, allows people to connect with their tribes and that's the goal. So ultimately the utility is access to great events, deeper connections with members, redeemable products and experiences, and verifiable credentials, unlocking future opportunities. I truly think that decentralized identity is one of those topics that will be on the forefront in the very near future. And so we want to be able to be on top of that and add an identity layer to it as, you know, the ultimate identity indicator or signal is your vibe and how you portray yourself to the world. And so verifiable credentials are an easily accessible way in which people can start to learn about self-sovereign identity.

Yeah, appreciate you guys. I think at the end of the day, our goal here is to make Web3 cool again amongst other things. We want to provide a culturally relevant onboarding experience for people into Web3 through great experiences and be able to reward people for that. Time and time again, you know, I'm a person who goes to ever- conferences and constantly going and to the ETHDenvers, to the NFTNYCs, to the South By Southwests, and there's a plethora of events to mull over and to go to. And so if we could get a way to aggregate all of that, put it into one platform, and know before we get there what's the vibe like.

Is there diversity? Is it a sausage fest in there? Is it a bunch of VC bros? If that's your vibe, then hey, more power to you, you'll have the real-time vibe analytic on that. But more so, we just want to curate safe spaces for vibes, you know, and ultimately give people a platform in which they can go to and know that whatever event they go to, that it'll be a good one and the vibe will be there and be rewarded for it.

Yeah, no, it's, I think you said it all. I think the only other parts to add, there are a few other areas that although what he explained is really our primary focus, two other areas: the redeem section, although we're going to work with brand partners to allow, let's say we do a special capsule, a special collection, with whatever company, that specific collection will be available, only 100 pieces available in our redeem section, to only people who have X amount of Vibe Checks. Right? So there's a whole gamified engagement set up there. But we started thinking about it more and more, it's like wouldn't it be cool if the community were the ones giving up the gifts? And so this idea of a peer-to-peer redeem section has kind of been born because most creatives have services and we all need each other's services, but the thing that's stopping us is money. So what if we replace money with Vibe Checks? And now you can get that photo shoot done, I can get that edit done, you can get that album cover done, we can work with each other using a different system of payment. And I think that type of thing's going to really take off for us, you know. So those things are important and yeah, man, we look forward to any questions you have, would love to talk through a little more if anything stood out in what we said. Be great to hear.

Yeah, yeah, I love this, guys. So gang, on that point, if you have any questions for Anthony or Russ, please post them here or you can also post them in the DevNTell Discord channel in the Developer DAO server. But for me, so in the beginning you guys mentioned that you were taking a Web 2.5 approach and looking to basically bring down the barriers to entry into Web3 with Proof of Vibes. I'm curious to hear, like, what's your approach to solving that issue? Is it through just like a regular mobile app where you don't say the word NFT or token and kind of just like abstract that for the user, or...?

Well, some of it, just to jump in, some of it is just meeting people where they are. So, you know, you have the ability to kind of walk in from a Web2 perspective if that's where you are and sign up with your email or phone number, etc. But then you also have the ability to top up into a Web3 portion of the site that allows you to connect your wallet, that allows you to kind of do everything. But ultimately we do want to onboard people into this world of Web3 and but we don't want to be Web3 bullies, you know what I mean? And I think that's what keeps happening, is kind of like force-feeding. We're force-feeding people a technology that hasn't settled yet, right? And so we're like, ‘No, you got to use this, you got to use this, got to use this,’ and then the news is coming out that there's all these rugs and all this other stuff going on, right? And then we're like, ‘Actually, don't use that one, use this one.’

So our communications are a little wobbly right now, and so we just want to, we're actually taking a retro Web3 approach, like picnics in the park and hanging out with 20 friends. Pull up to that, you know, a 1:00 AM party at the end of the conference when everything's done. You know, a day party in the middle of the conference called ‘Fuck the Panels’, you know, that pulls people out of their brains a bit, but we're still doing the work, right? You're meeting great people, you're still talking about Web3, but it's a little bit of, you know, it's like let's get away from the zeros and ones a bit and really be human again, you know? So that we can really figure out and listen to people and understand why they really would need Web3. We're kind of creating this thing not as real developers, like the true developers should be doing real research, right? R&D, you should really be listening to what people want versus just force-feeding your opinion of what it should be. And we've been doing a lot of force-feeding. We've been really in a lot of silos and like, ‘Yeah, we're so excited about our thing because that investor's going to give you the money,’ but did you talk to the community yet? Do they need it? You know, so.

Exactly. Love that.

Yeah, I mean, if I could add, you know, one quick thing, it would just be as far as the Web 2.5 approach, the loyalty reward is what we wanted to highlight as people understand. ‘If I go and buy four coffees, I'm going to get one for free,’ and so we want to take that approach, you know, but add like a little bit of Yelp with your events. So if I leave reviews, I get these tokens, I'm actively securing this network of vibes and now I'm being rewarded for it. And I think that the real key is just curation and discovery. If you can curate an easy experience where people feel good because vibes are a feeling, then I think that it lowers a lot of barriers to entry.

And I guess that's a good tangent on my next question. So a natural fit other than events and like hangouts is like restaurants, right? Restaurants also have vibes. So have you guys been thinking about that and how to apply this concept to perhaps be like a Web3 kind of Yelp or a thing that would power a Web3 Yelp?

I like ‘powering’. Someone mentioned us powering several platforms too. I mean, we have a special saying: it's ‘And not Or’. So we really remove ourselves from a lot of head-to-head moments of what direction should we go in? ‘Oh, we're going both,’ you know. But yeah, absolutely. We just thought it would be smarter to start with events first, because it's a great way to onboard, especially with conferences. We're partnering with a number of conferences, so a lot of that indoor traffic is going to be quick to populate. And then also conferences a number of times, there's a challenge when you get that Excel sheet or whatever sheet with a thousand parties to go to that week, what do you do? Right away that feeling is like, ‘Oh my God, how am I going to hit all these events?’ Well, the truth is you kind of need an aggregator. So wouldn't it be cool that you really go to PoV, punch in the type of people that you want to meet, the types of events. Actually, we already know it because we have all your analytics, right? So we already know what you like and what you're doing. And so we're actually just going to kind of compile a list for you. And if you click here, here, and here, now you're on the guest list, right? Now you've RSVP’d, you know. And now when you're there and you're using our app, now we have QR codes kind of Easter egged throughout the venue, you know? Or at a certain point, the QR code pops up on the projector, not in the beginning at 9:00 o'clock when it first started, but at 1:00 AM when it's at its peak, and you can verify that ‘No, you were there at the right time.’ You were there at the right time. So some of that, you know, is included.

100% agree. I think that it's important when you think about culture as a whole, it's an umbrella for food, entertainment, events, all these things, you know, we want to highlight in our application. Food is a vibe, everybody goes to eat, you know, provide valuable insight, and that's a good opportunity for us to partner. We're going to provide directories of sorts, right? Like this idea that we have a list of, you know, the best spots to go to in Austin, whether it be food, nightlife, arts, entertainment, whatever the case might be. Again, vibes are very all-encompassing, it's just not tied to events, but our background is in events, you know, Ant got a history of 30-plus years of events. So that's our bread and butter, you know, but again, vibes are all-encompassing.

Yep, absolutely. And then another area, and also shout-out to everybody that's watching right now, I do see you in the chat, funkchan, I just see your question, definitely want to hit that up right after this. Another big thing that came to us when we talk about Vibes-as-a-Service, you know, is really our B2B approach. So there's B2C with the community, but this idea of being a vibe ambassador. This idea of pulling up on Microsoft and doing a vibe assessment, you know, it's kind of important because a lot of these folks are going through employee retention, especially in the office. Like, no one wants to go to work anymore, right? So this idea of ‘Why should I go to work if I could do this from home?’ It’s a big problem to fix right now, how do you reverse that? And so we came up with this idea of vibe assessments where, you know, we're walking in there with our cool glasses and our board and we're kind of checking out what's going on here at Microsoft. Like what do the people feel? But all jokes aside, it can be the little things, it can be the lighting in your office, it can be the music in the hallway, it can be a little vibe check event that happens every Thursday at 7:00 o'clock that keeps people in the office. A lot of people have anxiety, these little things change them, especially our beautiful incredible smart developers who sometimes have tons of social challenges, right? So what's going to make them feel comfortable being there? And those little tweaks can really change a lot within your business, so that's a B2B approach.

Powerful. I love it. And yes, funkchan, we see your question, bud. So, ‘How do you guys plan to deploy the mapping component? Like, will there be a mobile app down the line?’

Yeah, the goal is to have a mobile app down the line as everybody is on their phone, and so it makes the most sense to meet people where they're at. There is hopes of, we're taking a lot of inspiration from Snapchat maps in which like if you seen there's like a heat map of sort and you can see where your friends are at and things like that. We played around using Mapbox. And so ultimately we do want to revamp that and the end-all goal you should be able to pull up directly on your phone, pull up the PoV app, and then see if you think about it like just different pins of where vibes are at, different events and activations. I was talking to an advisor not too long ago and she brought up a good point: chainlink is an oracle of sorts. We want to be the oracle of vibes. You'll be able to pull up the map and see where everything's at and know that there's quality verification there and that it's going to be a good time. So ultimately even Google has been working on some implementation of vibes within their application within the map, but yeah, just pull up a map, heat sensor of sort, and then you should know that, ‘Okay, there's a lot of attraction going on there.’ The cool part is how we get that, cause the conferences, everybody's kind of looking for real-time analytics and so through like just implementing a QR code at each of these parties that we partner with and that will be on the map, we'll be able to see real-time. ‘All right, boom, people are now verifying that there's good energy here, it's pretty packed in here, there's diversity.’ And all these quantify vibe scores, which then will add into the map giving real-time vibe analytics. So hope that answers your question, funkchan. Appreciate you by the way, great question.

Excellent answer. Got a lot of new terms here: Vibes-as-a-Service, oracle of vibes. Love it.

We only have a few moments left here. So I just want to end off, what's the best way for folks to follow up with you or if they're very keen on helping you build out this vision of yours, how can they reach out?

Yeah, you can follow us on Twitter, on Instagram. On Twitter, it's @vibesproof. And then follow us on our personal pages as well. I'm @RussBallard215 and @antmarshall247 I believe, right Ant?

antmarshall on Twitter, Instagram.

Yep, yep. Just follow us on social media and look out for us in a city near you. We'll be activating at NFTNYC and Consensus, we got a plethora of programming for you guys. So if you're going to be at Consensus, please come rock with us and get some vibes. Make Web3 cool again.

Oh yeah, nice. No, we need it though, we really do need it. We all really need to, this whole idea of we're all going to make it, I keep saying we all *may* make it. You know what I mean? Like, we *will* make it if we really all come together and pull in when the times really get tough. And that's what's going on right now. And so you could have as much money as you want and all these big budgets and investment, but if you're not connecting with the cultural curators, like you're already doomed before you start. People already removing NFT from their names, people already moving away from this thing. We have the ability and this is the moment to bring them back. So we got to just make it cool. That's it.

funkchan, 100%, there's opportunities to collab and we'll be open source. Let's go. Reach out to us on Twitter.

Yep, let's go. Shout-out to JE, I see you. JE the builder. All right, appreciate you, man. Appreciate you. Much love. See you guys at NFTNYC or Consensus.

Excellent. And just before we end off here, I just want to let our audience know about our operators in the DAO. So did you know that Developer DAO's fundraising operators, Trek and Wikest, are here to help you fundraise for your projects? In their fundraising hub on the Discord server, you can find support in writing your grant applications, learning about fundraising, budgeting, pitching, and they can even introduce you to grant leads from different protocols. So if you're interested in that kind of thing, be sure to drop by their office hours twice a week or schedule a one-on-one with them. And with that, I want to thank you both very much for coming on. I really appreciate you taking the time to share Proof of Vibes with us. And I'm personally very fond of the idea, looking forward to you guys building it out. And yeah, wishing you the best of luck. Hope to see you on here another time, feel free to sign up again whenever you'd like. I know the schedule is kind of filled, but we always love to have repeat guests. Happy Friday, happy weekend, and we'll catch everybody back next week. Cheers.